You know the drill…peeking inside of the fridge (peeking seems less harmless), you search for something quick to grab - cheese, lunch meat, leftover desserts. When the fridge disappoints, the nearest bag of cookies or chips prevails.

A lot of people will tell you that the only remedy to kitchen grazing is to not have the stuff on hand to begin with. Label that denial file: boring & temporarily effective. Junk foods, (that includes fattening home made goodies too), always find their way back into your kitchen no matter how much you try to avoid them!

Unlike drugs and alcohol, food is something we have to have everyday. It's what kind of food and how much we eat that hangs us up. When you combine that with the fact that accessibility to food surrounds us no matter where we go, the potential for overeating is constantly looming about. Could this be how yo-yo dieting got started in the first place? In a fearless attempt to battle fast food chains and office goodie trays, we donned our diet denial hats and avoided temptation at all costs. But how long can any one person do that when you're constantly surrounded by the enemy? Not long, and definitely, not forever.

 

The problem with food is you just can't get away from it - you face it every day and every day you make choices, whether good or bad, on what and how much you're going to eat. Making the right choices without too much effort is the challenge. We found a great vehicle to help overcome this problem, by posting a list of all the things we could eat in any quantity on the fridge door. The key here is, the list has all the things you can eat without doing immense dietary damage. Weight loss author, Dr. Howard Shapiro, calls this the, "anytime list". Shapiro's theory is that you have to surround yourself with the foods you like in order to create dietary habits that work. What attracted us most to this concept was that there were things on the list we were surprised to see, like ice cream & candy.

In the beginning we tested the concept out - in three's. 3 Fudgecicles, 3 Tootsie pops, 3 of anything on that anytime list. We were determined to abuse the premise as much as we could, determined to prove we could eat anytime and in any quantity. It didn't matter that we were eating low calorie alternatives, (60 calories/Tootsie Pop and 50/Fudgecicle stick) because we were eating CANDY & ICE CREAM! Before long, we stopped eating in 3's, switched to 2's and eventually, believe it or not, settled quite happily into single servings.

This concept really does something for the overweight psyche. We destroyed the basic diet dilemma - telling yourself you can't have something, sticking to it for a short amount of time and then ultimately indulging in it. Being able to have foods you always thought were taboo when trying to lose weight, makes you feel like you're not dieting. The list, of course, also contains all the rabbit food you can think of too. We eventually made selections from those categories as well.

 

Naturally, we decided our everyday eats lists had to be enlarged. The challenge was to match all of our favorite craves with the lowest calorie alternative. Taste testing is an integral part of the process. For some things there are limits as to how low you can calorically go without sacrificing taste. Nothing gets on the list unless it tastes good!

We managed to fit our favorite treats into the mix by changing the way we approached them. For thin people, this is elementary thinking, for overeaters, this is a mind-boggling proposition! Let's take ice cream for example, using frozen yogurt as the caloric measure:

Q: What's the difference between our serving of ice cream and the normal serving size listed on the carton? A: 1/2 Cup and 110 calories - that's all. It takes an extra 110 calories for us to feel like we've got a dish in front of us.

Q: What's the difference between the bowl we used to serve ourselves with and a dish of ice cream?

A: A total of 660 calories for a 3 Cup bowl vs. 220 for a 1 Cup dish.

This is definitely where we got into trouble all the time until we replaced our big cereal bowls with tulip glasses. There's also something psychologically beneficial to having ice cream in a fountain glass. It's fun eating it with a long spoon and you feel like you're eating out. We now have 3 sizes on our shelves; the small 110 calorie [1/2 cup] size (for penance purposes), the 220 calorie serving (our standard ) and a large 400 calorie glass…when we just have to be bad!

While we were creating our ice cream strategy, we noticed that the difference between sugar free, frozen yogurt and light ice creams, just aren't that great - only 10 to 40 calories per ½ cup. We figured that as long as we dished it up in our tulip glasses, we were going to stick with taste. Edy's frozen yogurts and light ice creams are our favorites.

 

And what about Candy? We're glad you asked. There are only two kinds in our minds: hard and CHOCOLATE. Have you always told yourself that you have to stay away from chocolate when you're dieting because you're incapable of having just one piece? It's time to throw away the denial file and stock up on bags of individually wrapped chocolate. How many pieces of the bite size variety can you get away with? Using the following example, the magic number is 8.

8 Hersey Kisses are 205 calories & 8 Miniature 3 Musketeers are 195 calories

There's a BIG psychological factor involved here. When you have to unwrap every piece you put into your mouth, it slows the pig out process. It's much quicker to down handfuls of M&M's than it is to rip the foil off a Hersey Kiss. By the time you unwrap 8 of them, (that's unwrapping and eating one at a time) your brain will tell your mouth it's either pretty close to being satisfied or bored with the whole proposition.

If you don't believe us, take the Candy Challenge. Put a bowl of individually wrapped hard candies and chocolates out. Yes, we said bowl and put it out in plain view. At first, you'll act like a kid in a candy shoppe - stopping by the bowl whenever you can. Then at some point, when your brain understands that you can have candy whenever you want to, the novelty wears off - kinda like Who Wants to be a Millionaire? and sooner or later, (we hope sooner), The Weakest Link.

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If sweets aren't your nemesis, how about salts? Chips, crackers & pretzels, are things we just can't seem to live without. Again, how you dish them up will determine how much you should be eating. Top suggestion? Go to your local warehouse club and buy the vending machine size packages. Averaging about 150 calories a bag, the vending size does the trick. OR, buy a large bag and divide it into small plastic snack bag portions as soon as you get home - that's SMALL bags, not freezer bags! If you want more bang for your caloric buck, look toward the reduced fat and/or baked alternatives.

Use this tactic with cookies too. Believe it or not, there is safety in numbers. Try the mini versions of your favorites in the resealable bags. 15 mini Oreos are about 140 calories and 3 regular size Oreos are 160 (2 double stuffs are 140). We don't care what size the bite is, if we can chew in multiples, we're happy. Gone are the days when we used to buy the reduced fat Oreos (140 calories/3) so we'd feel less guilty after downing a ½ bag's worth. Do that math and you'll be amazed at the calories you can pack into one serving!

If the mini angle just won't cut it for you, start searching for alternatives that will. 8 vanilla wafers are about 130 calories and we definitely go the extra mile for 16 here. Archway makes a 2-bite variety of iced oatmeal cookies that pack 240 calories into an 8-cookie serving. When was the last time you had animal crackers? Try 16 of them for only 120 calories and 32 when you really need a good nosh

. ..just about now, we can hear the moans and groans emulating in cyberspace… forget that noise - I either eat as much junk food as I want to or I don't eat it at all...

 

Turning Point > > > This is where you've got to sit down and really think about what's going on here . If you keep avoiding the foods you crave because you're dieting, what happens when you stop dieting? You celebrate by eating all the things you denied yourself. Isn't this exactly why low-carb diets and controlled diet menu plans like Jenny Craig never permanently work? (No offense, Jenny.) It's exactly why! The real crux of the matter was never addressed in the first place - the issue of eating habits. Until you change the way you've always done things, you'll never change the result. There are several choices to consider here. You can become a healthy food fanatic (ie NO JUNK) or you can stick with the formula of denial & indulge: yo-yo on, yo-yo off OR you can learn how to integrate the things you want to eat by changing your approach to food and finally putting an end to the weight loss/gain cycle.

 

One person's list is another's reject. Choice and taste will obviously differ from one mouth to the next. The most important thing is creating what works for you. If you're hesitant about control in the beginning, omit the things that give you the most trouble and add them as you feel ready to do so. We started out grazing on the things that did the least amount of damage first, and then built on from there. When creating your own grazing list, it's important to consider as many food groups as possible. For ideas, peruse our Food Inventory, Meal Makers & Fridge Posting lists.

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We tried to break down as many food categories as we could think of, from butter to beverages, and systematically highlighted the finer points worth considering from variety, taste, caloric content and cookability.

Spices of Life

Butter is doable. 1 T of butter and 1 T of regular stick oleo is 100 calories. Interesting, huh? When you start shaving the oleo down with the light varieties, you can save 50 calories and more. Of course the lower you go, the fainter the taste of butter gets. The best find we latched onto is butter spray. The spray beat the powder varieties hands down in taste. The calories in butter spray are miniscule so you can abuse the hell out of it! And don't forget to use cooking sprays. After you've seasoned something, is it really that important to fry it up in butter or oil?

Salad Dressings aren't just for lettuce anymore. Use low cal varieties on fruit, mix with tuna, as a dip and in/on anything else you can think of.

Mayo deserves its own category. Are you a Miracle Whip or Hellman's loyalist? Each has low cal varieties that will do the trick.

Condiments & Spices are essential. If green catsup isn't your thing, how about garlic salt and honey mustard? Stock flavor.

Relishes make great sidecars too. Try pickle, corn, jardiniere, peppers and don't forget the salsa! Believe it or not, jardiniere packed in oil is only 37 calories /T. That's a lot of taste for a little damage.

Pickles & Olives can bring a burst of flavor to a lot of recipes. Keep variety on hand for cooking and snacking.

 

Rabbit Food

Lettuce, Slaw, Fruits & Vegetables - what else is there to say? Your goal should be to get 3 fruits and 5 vegetable servings in every day. In our opinion, the only way you're going to reach that veggie goal is through salads. This is definitely one challenge that varies greatly from day to day for us. ( For what it's worth: Martha says, if you wrap your celery in foil, it'll keep longer. )

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Dairy

Cheese is the ultimate food fix. No matter how you look at it, your relationship with cheese has got to change for the better. You don't have to end it, but you've got to reinvent it. Stick with the following guidelines:

Use Crumbled Feta on salads. It's only 20 calories / T.

Snack on String Cheese (available in cheddar flavor now too). About 80 calories/string.

Rely upon Light & Reduced Fat Cheeses for cooking and sandwich slices. ( In our opinion, fat free cheese and heat don't mix - all you get is a disgusting rubbery texture with no taste.)

Breakstone's 2% Cottage Cheese is the best taste around at 90 calories per ½ cup.

Neufchâtel Cream Cheese is great. (We call it, noy-cha-foy-chull. ) It's only 70 calories per 2 T. and shaves 4 grams of fat off from the regular brand per serving.

Rave Faves Kaukauna lite sharp cheddar cold packed cheese is 70 calories / 2 T. Excellent on crackers and sandwiches! Once you stop piling mountains of cheese onto every cracker you eat, you'll be amazed at how many level-spreaded servings you can get out of 2 tablespoons.

Yogurt is a useful diet tool - really! Eat it for breakfast, lunch, as a snack or dessert. Mix it with fruit and cereal or use as a dip or in recipes. Taste differs greatly among the brands. Are you a Yoplait or Dannon person?

Eggs - real and fake. Calorie wise, it's not that bad on an egg to substitute basis. One large raw egg is 75 calories and a ½ cup substitute is 30. The real issue comes down to how you cook 'em up.

 

Breads

Toast & Sandwich - your slice in life has got to change. We know, you can make a meal on bread and butter. Who couldn't? But bread is where you can save a lot of calories with little remorse. Stick to the 40-45 calorie per slice varieties. By the time you pile on what's in between, it won't hurt too much - we promise.

Bialis & English Muffins take the place of bagels. A deli bagel is about 500 calories. With cream cheese? Don't ask. Bialis ( a flat bagel look alike, large in size) are about 150 calories and english muffins are 140. The store bought bagels don't come close either. About 240 calories for half the size of the deli variety.

Buns & Rolls need to be tweaked. (All puns intended!) The same premise applies - find the lowest calorie varieties out there. A local grocery store just came out with reduced fat hamburger and hot dog buns at 80 calories per. There is no difference in the taste, and the size remains as small as the full calorie store brand kind.

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Snacks

Chips, Crackers, Pretzels, Candy & Popcorn are definitely worth having less of. General Guideline: Keep it to 200 calories or less per serving. Chip Tip: One of the toughest things to keep control of is the calories in snack chips. Half the time the serving size on the package says something like, "Serving Size: about 2 oz." The odds of us actually weighing potato chips before we ate them were obviously next to none, which made it absolutely impossible to figure out what 2 oz. per serving was when the chips aren't countable to begin with. Let's face it, the odds of finding 20 chips of the same size that weren't broken in the bag to begin with were even bigger. At one point, we thought we'd only be able to buy Pringles, because they were the easiest to count. We have nothing against Pringles, but the desire for variety drove us crazy. Then one day, we took a second look at the bags of bite size tortilla chips. Bells and whistles went off, 'there are other countable choices out there!' Scoop chip varieties are another valid option too. The moral of the story is: go for countable chips and if you can't avoid broken pieces, stick to Pringles and vending machine size bags.

Nuts are treacherous. ¼ cup of mixed nuts are around 200 calories - ¼ cup is a small handful. Stick to peanuts in the shell. 20 peanuts are about 169 calories - that's 10 shells. See what we mean? Hopefully, taking the time to shell them will slow your intake down.

Dips deserve a little extra effort. The great thing about dips, are they can make the most boring food taste great. Do carrots and celery come to mind? Low cal ingredients are key: fat free sour cream, light cream cheese, humus, yogurt, chopped vegetables, fruits and spice 'o plenty. Salsa, whether fresh or store bought, is one of the best low calorie alternatives. 1 tablespoon of reduced fat peanut butter (at 90 calories) also goes a long way with an apple.

 

Desserts

Ice Cream & Cookies are a must! Keep taste testing the lowest calorie varieties and different sizes to build your arsenal favorites.

Pudding & Jell-O can be harmless. Jell-0, packs more calories into that little box than you'd think. ½ cup of regular is 80 calories. When we eat Jell-O, it's usually about a 2 cup serving - that's 320 calories. Sugar-free on the other hand, is only 10 calories per ½ cup. Once you set it with some fruit and top it off with some low-cal whipped topping, sugar-free is a great alternative. The same theme holds true for Jell-o's sugar free puddings.

Twinkies …for example. Hostess has the most-ess. Fat free Twinkies are only 100 calories per twink. When you consider what that creamy filling is made of, (rumor says, it's whipped lard), is there any sacrifice you would be making here?

Whipped Toppings are your friend. There is absolutely no reason we can find to avoid whipped toppings today. The light and fat free choices (including the aerosol cans) range between 10-20 calories/ 2 T. Why do you think they call it, cool whip?

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Beverages

Milk has got be skim. If you drink your milk like water, you can pack on 100's of extra calories on per meal. 1 Cup of skim milk is 80 calories.

Coffee & Tea need little adjustment. Substitute cream and sugar with fat free dairy creams and sweeteners, if you can tolerate them. ( It's worth a try since, 1oz. of sugar [that's 2 T.] is 110 calories and 1 T. of honey is 60 calories. ) There is a big difference in taste between the blue packet and the pink packet too. As far as caffeine goes, it's a personal issue, in our opinion.

Diet vs. Regular Pop - no contest. A regular pop averages 100 + calories per 8 oz. If you're a 6 pack a day drinker, do the math. Just by switching to diet, you'll save 4200 calories a week, which translates into losing a pound plus by doing so - that's 52 lbs. per year! If you can't stand diet pop because you crave the sugary taste of regular, ease into it. Try Diet Dr. Pepper and other highly sweetened varieties until you can find the one that will bring you to the other side. There really is a difference in taste among the brands. Pepsi vs.Coke? We won't even go there.

Ades, Hot Chocolate, Ciders and the like… Some people swear by the Crystal Light mixes. At 5 calories per 8 oz. glass, it definitely beats out Country Time Lemonade at 70 calories and Kool Aid, at 100 calories. No matter what your choice of beverage is, seeking out the lowest calorie alternative is worth the effort.

Fruit Juices are calorie laden foils. Somewhere along the line we've been conditioned to think orange juice in the morning is essential to a healthy diet. (We don't know about you, but the whole pulp thing is disgusting to us.) An 8 oz. glass of OJ is about 100 calories. An average size orange is about 60. If speed is your argument, peel, slice and bag the orange the night before and put it in the fridge. It doesn't matter which type of fruit your juice comes in, the calorie comparison is the same. The real McCoy always beats out the liquid alternative.

Meal Substitutes - if you think you don't have time to eat, you really don't have time not to. Why drink your meal when you can eat it? Dieting minds seem to think they earn Brownie points when they drink their breakfast and lunch - which usually translates into eating more for dinner. There's all kinds of quick low cal alternatives to break the Slimfast dependency. 8 oz. of skim milk with: a piece of fruit, or yogurt, or low cal breads, or an english muffin and so on, either come in under the 220 calorie mark or are equal to it.

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Breakfast

Cereals can be deceiving. If you don't believe us, take a look at Grape Nuts. ½ cup of those little nuggets are 200 calories. We used to mix them into our yogurt, thinking we were pretty damn diet saavy in doing so. A ½ cup is even less than what's in those little cereal boxes you get at a restaurant. Granted, comparing the density of nuggets to flakes, may not be fair, but we'd rather have a 2 cup serving of flakes, puffs or squares for the same amount of calories any day over ½ cup of rock hard granola. A word about sugar - if you can't tolerate sugar substitute on unsweetened cereal, get the frosted varieties. Surprisingly enough, there are a lot of them that fit very nicely into the 2 cup serving calorie quota.

Breads & Muffins can be deceiving. When you want to reach for a good sized muffin - the kind that takes more than a couple of bites to eat…don't. You might be reaching for as much as 600 calories for just one of them. Do your homework and it will pay off. Keep trying the lower calorie brands until you find your taste threshold. Use butter spray on your toast, and the low calorie jams and jellies that passed your taste test. It's worth the effort:

2 pcs. regular bread 200 C + 2 T. butter 200 C + 2 T. jam 100 C = 500 Calories

vs.

2 pcs. low cal bread 90 C + butter spray zero C + 2 T. sugar free jelly 20 C = 110 Calories

Waffles are the better choice. There are more lower calorie alternatives to choose from with waffles than pancakes. Eggos are at the top of our list - they're bigger. At about 180 calories per 2 pieces, with butter spray and low calorie syrup, (100 calories per ¼ cup), you've got a decent eat for under 300 calories. There are low fat pancakes out there for 210 calories per 3 pieces, but it just seems like you get more chews out of a waffle.

Rave Faves Waffuls by Eggo. They come in blueberry, apple cinnamon and maple flavors - not those specs of flavor we're used to either. They taste like they're packed with butter and syrup in the middle. The best thing is you can even eat them by hand. The down side is they're 150 per piece -which didn't bother us, because having just one of them was enough. Even if you want 2, it's not outrageous.

Morning Meat alternatives are tough to find. If you can tolerate those bacon look alike strips that are made out of turkey and God knows what else, you're luckier than we are. Sometimes, you just can't substitute the real thing for a processed alternative. 2 slices of bacon are 60 calories - for 4 pieces, we'll add one Wafful and call it a special day. For a bigger chew factor, try Spam Lite. (You either eat it to begin with, or you don't.)

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Lunch & Dinner

Soup is good food. Soup becomes food when it has a lot of stuff in it. Prego makes a great 18.8 oz. can of chicken noodle and tomato vegetable rotini. At 200 calories for the whole can, you really feel like you're eating something. Add your own fresh or leftover vegetables to it and make it even heartier. Cream soups are okay too. Campbell's Ready to Serve 18.7 oz tomato soup is 240 calories for the whole can.

 

Salads should be hearty meals. One person's idea of a salad is another's rabbit food reject. Be creative! You really can add just about anything to lettuce and make something out of it. When we make a salad we put as much as we can into it: fruit, feta, raisins, vegetables, water cress, olives, lean meats and poultry, fish, canned beans, pasta, lots of spices and whatever else we can think of. If you make it interesting enough, you won't have to drown it in dressing either.

Lunch Meats are great anytime. Between bread, rolled up with low cal cream cheese and a pickle, in salads and on crackers. No matter how you slice it, the lean and low cal varieties are the way to go.

Rave Faves Buddig Premium Lean Slices - deli style. A 2.5 oz. package (about 8 slices total) ranges between 70-90 calories by meat. Besides, what happens when you have a whole package of anything? Your brain thinks you're really getting away with something. Louis Rich Cheese Franks. They taste great and are only 90 calories per frank. That is pretty amazing since Oscar Meyer's cheese franks are 150 calories per link - and we don't know exactly what's inside those dogs either.

Canned Fish & Poultry are great staples to have on hand. Take the soup and salad mentality, mix it with the lowest calorie mayo you can find and you've got a pretty decent main course.

Burgers & Dogs are a quick fix necessity. From this point forward your bun warmers should be made of turkey, chicken and vegetables. Have you ever seen that commercial where a woman offers veggie burgers to cowboys? Try your own taste test. Boca, Morning Star and Jennie-O are the best brands we found. Once you load a veggie burger or turkey dog up with lettuce, tomato, onions, pickles and mustard, your brain thinks you're eating beef anyway. Really fake yourself out and put a fat free single slice of cheese on it, and you'll think you've gone to fast food heaven. (This is the only instance when we suggest fat free cheese. You can't taste the rubber with all the other stuff on there.)

Pizza and Tombstone go hand in hand. Of all the varieties out there, Tombstone offers several overall low cal varieties that taste really good. Try the Mexican Chicken Fajita and Vegetable reduced fat at 1200 and 1500 calories per whole pie. Thank you, Kraft! The store brand cheese pizzas usually come in at 1,200 calories per pie. They make a great starting point for you favorite vegetable toppings and spices.

Pasta ….doesn't go with lotsa anymore. Do you know what the problem with pasta is? It's the same reason why cookies and cakes are calorie culprits too - it's the flour. Flour is 400 calories a cup. Most recipes start with 2 cups, so no matter how you sift it, flour based foods are trouble. If you can eat start eating your pasta the majority of the time as a sidecar serving (1/2 cup is 200 calories) and/or as a small ingredient in soup and salads, you'll makes strides in reducing calories consumed.

Frozen Entrees of the low cal variety. The best thing you can do to make these mini portions feel like a meal, is to add sidecars to them - more vegetables, salads, low cal bread and so forth. If you're really feeling deprived and lazy, have 2 of them - for dinner, that is.

Check out Label Games & Quick Cooks for more ideas.

Attention Vegans & Soy Connoisseurs The problem with soy is not taste, but calories. We investigated the possibilities, and decided that soy was not a viable alternative for us. Whether for health related or vegetarian reasons, you opt to narrow your food choices in these ways, creativity will be extremely important to your menu. We suggest making a list of absolutely everything you can eat and then refining it in as many different mixed and matched combinations you can think of to help.

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Everyday Eats is about restocking your kitchen with lower calorie alternatives to your favorite foods in addition to keeping the healthy basics and an array of spices and condiments on hand to create a better eating environment. In lieu of completely banishing any and all goodies from the house, (a tactic that always blows up in your face once you can't bear life without cookies anymore), finding low cal alternatives to your favorite fattening foods makes all those stifling diet denials a thing of the past.

Post your go-to food arsenal on the fridge - it is easier to work with a reference sheet than trying to recondition your eats from memory right off the bat. Referring to the list also helped battle the reach-and-grab-for-junk urge. Before long it became second nature to walk into the kitchen and, at the very least, contemplate eating better before eating badly. Those extra seconds of contemplation (aka: thinking twice) saves thousands of extra calories over all.

Personal behavior and preference should dictate how detailed the list becomes. For some people a synopsis may be enough and for others a breakdown by food category, serving size and calorie count is the more desirable choice. In either case, we suggest the list should be broken down into 2 major eating categories: AQ for any quantity and PC for portion control. AQ means you can eat as much as you want to. Foods listed under the PC category need to be monitored. In other words, you can have anything you want to within reason (i.e. what thin people do), which really is what will help you to maintain weight levels over the long run.

The foods you choose to put into your arsenal have to pass (with flying colors, we might add) your own taste tests. There's no point to putting a cookie that tastes like dirt or a salad dressing that tastes bitter on the list, just because they're low calorie alternatives. We truly believe that for every taste bud out there, a palate-friendly low cal and healthier alternative is available on the grocery shelf.

PC Tricks Part of the success of eating within a portion controlled environment is how you go about it. Some people prefer a visually metaphoric environment to work with. For example, a normal serving of chicken is the size of a playing card, according to Jim Karas and a medium sized piece of fruit or potato is the size of your computer mouse, according to Richard Simmons. If this works for you, great. Our first preference is relying upon pre-packaged goods: cups of pudding, vending machine sized bags of chips, etc. Our second approach is based strictly on the numbers - counting & measuring until you can dish it out calorically correct by sight.

 

Example Fridge Form.pdf

Our Short Lists

 

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